Conference Report On H.R. 2997, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food And Drug Administration, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Madam Chair, for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Congressional Rural Housing Caucus, I rise in strong support of the Agriculture appropriations conference report for fiscal year 2010. It goes a long way to improving the affordability, availability, and quality of housing in rural America.

On April 2, 2009, several of my colleagues and I sent a letter to Chairwoman ROSA DELAURO and to Ranking Member JACK KINGSTON from Georgia encouraging them to provide significant funding for several rural housing programs. I am pleased with the amount of funding each of these have received and look forward to providing additional funding to some of those that were kept at the fiscal year 2009 appropriations level.

Mr. Speaker, rural America needs our help. Our rural constituents, their families and their communities need our support. This conference report will improve the quality of life in rural America, an area of the country that was neglected for quite some time.

I want to thank Chairwoman ROSA DELAURO and Ranking Member JACK KINGSTON of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture for finding and for providing the ways and means to improve the affordability, availability and quality of housing in rural America. I also want to thank Chairman Obey and Ranking Member Lewis for bringing this conference report to the floor. I applaud you for your efforts and thank you for this conference report. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to increase funding in future fiscal years for programs that help rural America.

I urge all my colleagues to support this conference report that will bring much-needed help to our neighbors in rural America.

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